Away from Rome!
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Away from Rome! (
Origins
"Away from Rome" (German: Los-von-Rom-Bewegung) was a religious movement founded in Austria around 1900. Mostly politically influenced, the movement aimed at supporting change of confession from the Roman Catholic to either the Evangelical Lutheran or the Old Catholic denomination. It was supported by German National forces.
The slogan "Away from Rome" was coined by Theodor Georg Rakus, a medical student, who would later become Dr. Theodor Georg Rakus, physician and royal Swedish vice consul in Salzburg, and a companion of Georg von Schönerer.
Background: Greater German and German national ideas
Since the time of Counter-Rreformation among the
Starting point: Count Badeni's language decrees
In 1897, the Language decrees issued by Prime Minister
Schönerer's slogan (German: "Ohne Juda, ohne Rom wird gebaut Germanias Dom") ("Without either Jewry or Rome, shall Germania's cathedral be built!") demonstrates a typical conflation of anti-Catholicism with xenophobia.) In a congregation of German nationalists in Vienna, the so-called "German National Congress" (Deutscher Volkstag), the Austro-German nationalists called upon their followers to leave the Catholic Church en masse, and Schönerer coined the additional slogan (German: "Los von Rom!") ("Away from Rome!")
The conversion movement was supported by Protestant organizations from Germany, especially by the "Gustavus Adolphus Association" (Gustav-Adolf-Verein) and the Protestant Federation (Evangelischer Bund) until 1905. Between January 1898 and March 1900 10,000 Austrians defected from the Catholic Church. More than 65,000 people joining the Lutheran Church and more than 20,000 people joining the Old Catholic Church before the outbreak of World War I in 1914 were registered. As a result, many new Protestant churches and rectories had to be built. Nevertheless, not all conversions can be seen as a result of the "Away from Rome" movement. Many of them were due to a general dissatisfaction with the Roman Catholic Church, which was largely viewed as monarchist and anti-progressive. The Catholic Church was at first hesitant to react, but from 1902 onward, large press campaigns were undertaken, and administrative measures were enacted to slow down the conversion movement.
As a result from the "Away from Rome" movement, the Protestant churches in Austria fell to an extent under the influence of Pan-German nationalists and anti-Semites. Many Austrian Protestants, however, were already influenced and affected by the